REM: Rare Frequencies (Fanclub)

To see my list of great R.E.M. videos (1982-1984) please come visit The Big Takeover.


While I never worshiped at the altar of REM (more HERE), the band kept a strong hold of me till 1994's Monster. While the first single, "What's the Frequency, Kenneth" lived up to album's idea of a louder, rawer rock n' roll sound, much of the rest album ("Crush With Eyeliner" might also get a pass here) just fell flat*. And from then on my interest in REM never really returned. I've heard albums the band's released since '94 that sounded just fine but that sense of vitality, that sense that this is music people will remember for generations just evaporated for me.

* Of the albums legacy, Wikipedia dryly notes, "Despite generally positive critical reception, used CD stores received a large number of copies of "Monster" from sellers seeking to unload the album. A large pile of "Monster" copies was often the only used option for buyers looking for an REM album. Some used CD stores stopped buying the album due to a growing overstock and little demand from buyers."

So to bring us back to the vital era, let's offer a bootleg CD that collects up the  band's fanclub-only Christmas singles from 1988 to 1996. While there are definitely a few holiday-tunes here,  the lion's share of the tracks are intriguing cover choices by influences like Television, Mission of Burma, The Vibrators, CCR, Spizzenergi, Suicide, Johnny Cash, Flipper, Roky Erickson and Richard Thompson.

Did your interest in REM drop off at some point? Let us know in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the Rare Frequencies link).

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R.E.M. and The Byrds do Dylan (And More!)

Well as the title implies this is a meeting of two massively influential forces in American music that occurred on 5/11/88. On that day, ex-Byrd Roger McGuinn joined 3/4 of R.E.M. (more HERE) and the band ran through a set of Byrds classics including, not surprisingly, three Bob Dylan covers ("You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", "Mr. Tambourine Man and "Knocking on Heaven's Door"). Of course other Byrds' classics like "Turn, Turn, Turn", "Eight Miles High" and my personal favourite, "Feel a Whole Lot Better" as well as then-new McGuinn songs like "The Tears" are well-represented ".

Michael Stipe, as he did when the band backed up The Troggs, Warren Zevon et al,  absented himself leaving just the Southern Gentlemen (Bill Berry, Mike Mills, and Peter Buck) to give McGuinn wings on this fine-sounding bootleg.



Over El Vagon Alternativo McGuinn himslef dropped by to speak tersely of this release, "This is a bootleg. They did not release this recording under any name. The guys showed up at a Roger McGuinn show and sat in for a few songs."

    Track Listing:

        1. 
            Sunshine Love    2:27
        2. 
            The Tears    3:30
        3. 
            Chestnut Mare    5:33
        4. 
            Tiffany Queen 2    3:11
        5. 
            You Ain't Going Nowhere    3:37
        6. 
            I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better    2:46
        7. 
            Mr. Spaceman    2:43
        8. 
            The Bells Of Rhymney    3:38
        9. 
            Mr. Tambourine Man    2:40
        10. 
            Turn, Turn, Turn    3:57
        11. 
            Eight Miles High    5:00
        12. 
            Knockin' On Heaven's Door    5:16

What do you make of this meting of the generations?  Let us know in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the 'REMember the Byrds' link).

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R.I.P. R.E.M. (The Unreleased Live Album, 1984)

"Pretty Persuasion."

That was the first R.E.M. song I ever heard. It would've been sometime in early 1985 and my hipper, cooler brother-in-law made me a tape which included everything from the New York Dolls to The Psychedelic Furs to Black Flag to Hanoi Rocks to The Enigmas to, of course, R.E.M. I quickly became obsessed with that soon-to-be-legendary intersection of mumble and jangle. I devoured Reckoning and its follow-up, Fables of the Reconstruction and I used them as my albums to fall asleep to (in a good way).



Now that R.E.M. have called it quits, I suppose it's time to re-visit a band I've hardly payed attention to for the last 15 years. What better way to do glance backwards than to present this live bootleg that, according to the liner notes, was supposed to be their final album for I.R.S. till it was nixed by lead singer, Michael Stipe. While this sounds a little fanciful to me, the performance and the sound quality are excellent reminders of why we should all mourn the passing of R.E.M.

REM "THE UNRELEASED LIVE LP" live R.E.M. Soundboard.

1         Chinese Bros.        
2         Catapult        
3         Radio Free Europe        
4         9-9        
5         Gardening At Night        
6         Windout        
7         Letter Never Sent        
8         Kohoutek        
9         So. Central Rain        
10         (Don't Go Back To) Rockville        
11         1,000,000        
12         Hyena        
13         West Of The Fields        
14         Old Man Kensey        
15         Second Guessing        
16         Hyena        
17         Letter Never Sent        
18         Driver 8        
19         Old Man Kensey        
20         Pretty Persuasion        
21         1,000,000        
22         Second Guessing        

Tracks 1 to 15 recorded live on Sept. 24, 1984 at Duke University in Durham, NC on the North American "Little America" tour.
Tracks 16 to 22 are bonus live tracks with no dates given.


So what was the first R.E.M. song you heard?  Let us know in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the Unreleased Live Album link).

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Surprise Your Pig: A Tribute to R.E.M.

The nineties produces a torrential glut of punk rock compilations and a similar excess of tribute albums. In that spirit, let us consider 1992's Surprise Your Pig: A Tribute to R.E.M. It's certainly no generic compilation full of sound-a-like bands or dead-faithful covers. Nope this one walks a jagged line between the more song-oriented punk bands (J Church, Jawbreaker, Mr. T Experience and Jawbox) and the more quirky noisiness of the old Shimmy Disc bands (Gumball, When People Were Shorter.... , King Missile). How often these re-workings succeed, and few directly compete with those ringing originals, is up for debate (hopefully) but R.E.M. would surely approve of Vic Chestnut's deconstruction of "It's the End of the World..." and Jawbox's bass-heavy take on "Low" (which might well best the original).




1. "Radio Free Europe" by Just Say No – 3:10
2. "1,000,000" by Band of Susans – 4:25
3. "Stumble" by Gumball – 6:19
4. "We Walk" by Steelpole Bathtub – 3:40
5. "Talk About the Passion" by Samson & The Philistines – 4:07
6. "Pretty Persuasion" by Jawbreaker – 5:35
7. "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" by J Church – 3:40
8. "Feeling Gravitys Pull" by Phleg Camp – 3:03
9. "Cant Get There from Here" by The Mr. T Experience – 2:50
10. "Good Advices" by Flor de Mal – 3:06
11. "Bandwagon" by The Punch Line – 2:19
12. "I Believe" by When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Water – 2:39
13. "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by Vic Chesnutt – 4:04
14. "Get Up" by King Missile – 2:31
15. "Losing My Religion" by Tesco Vee's Hate Police – 3:05
16. "Low" by Jawbox – 4:08
17. "Shiny Happy People" by Mitch Easter – 3:28



Download Surprise Your Pig CD